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When I sat down to prepare a message from 1 Corinthians 11:2-16, I anticipated having to answer questions I have heard for years: “Was Paul a misogynist? Do women really have to wear coverings for their heads? Is the Bible so tied up in 1st century culture that it is now irrelevant to ours?” But the question that I came away from this text with was this- “How does marriage demonstrate the Gospel?’

Self-centeredness is easy to diagnose in other people, but it is more difficult to perceive in our own selves. However, most of the problems that occur within churches are at the root issues of self-centeredness. In 1 Corinthians 10:23-11:1, there is an issue of self-centeredness. The remedy: being intentional about doing everything (even the smallest of things) for the glory of God.

The Lord’s Table is rich in meaning; there is an invitation to commune with God through the blood of Christ, to join with Him (and others who believe in Jesus). 1 Corinthians 10:14-22 tell us that the same things that we experience at the Lord’s Table is also experienced when we chase after idols… we become compromised.

1 Corinthians 9:19-27 teaches us to be intentional in the work of salvation. “I have become all things to all people that I might save some”- I wish we who are the church would have the same desire that the Apostle Paul had for evangelism.

In the 21st century it is strange to think that a Christian would view eating meat as sinful, but that was what some Corinthian Christians were wrestling with. The problem was that their conscience grieved them because of their background in idolatry. While we may not wrestle with this exact same issue, do we make issues of conscience (NOT issues of sin) more important than the salvation of our brothers and sisters? Our text is 1 Corinthians 8.

We often have one of two approaches to time- “hurry up” or “slow down.” Time is what marks out our lives, and yet it seems we don’t have enough of it. 1 Corinthians 7:25-40 is written in answer to a question that the Corinthian church had (What do we tell our widows? What should we tell those who are engaged to be married?) and Paul answers by focusing on the larger question- “what do we do with our time?”

There are a number of times we think God is like us… specifically, that He is limited by our barriers. In 1 Corinthians 7, the Apostle Paul takes on two barriers that hindered many Christians in the 1st century- Circumcision and slavery. Before we get too caught up in finding 21st century parallels, the big picture of this text is the sovereignty of God. There should be no doubt in our minds that God is all powerful and able to do all things through us.

“God hates divorce.” That’s what Malachi 2 tells us. But if you read through the entire passage, you find that God hates divorce for the same reasons we do- it is a violent end of two unified lives. In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul answers some questions the Corinthian church had about divorce. Is there ever a reason? Is it an appropriate response when someone you are married to isn’t interested in Jesus?